Training

Training is living up to what we've been told- it is very intense. We're still having a hard time adjusting to the time change and we've got tests and presentations to plan for. We still aren't technically employed for this company until we pass the skills test which will be on Friday. We aren't accustomed to taking weighty tests under such a time pressure. Perhaps they're attempting to give us some appreciation of what our future students experience constantly. Many of these Korean kids go to 5 different English schools and have 2 different tutors on top of their regular public school hours. The classes we will teach are 3 hours each and some meet twice a week. Hours of homework are assigned and because parents are paying so much money, the kids get in a lot of trouble if they don't succeed. These kids are under so much pressure and have little time to enjoy being a kid. The view of education here is so drastically different from back home. I guess that could possibly be a contributing factor to the extremely high suicide rate amongst teenagers here.
Because we're so tired after training, we haven't done much exploring since the weekend. We've taken the subway and it seems to be pretty straightforward, yet because we're mingling with so many more people in close proximity, the staring seems so much more predominant. We're slowly learning what is acceptable and apparently flip flops absolutely do not make the cut. The driving is still crazy, yet there seems to be order in the absolute chaos.
We'll be finished training on Saturday and if we pass then we will move on to our permanent location in Taegu.